Prepare for the Quantum Leap in

Real-Time Analytics
How in-memory analytics is going to
change everything about your enterprise

Business white paper

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

Table of contents
2 Introduction
4 The rise of in-memory computing
and the explosion of data

Authors:
Don Mettica, Business Analytics Global Partner lead for SAP,
IBM Global Business Services

5 New way vs old way

Steve Lucas, Senior Vice President, Business User Sales, SAP

North America

7 The in-memory transformation

Sometimes a seemingly unassuming

changes that in-memory analytics will

shift in technology poises a revolutionary

enable.

opportunity
8 The scope of strategic value
13 The scope of business enabling
technology
14 Lower risk, lower TCO, more
flexibility
15 Conclusion

change. In an age where massive

quantities of data is accelerating in

In-memory analytics will be able to

volume, variety and velocity, we need

remove latency in data, enabling real-

a data acceleration solution that

time use of operational or transactional

is disruptive, game-changing, and

information instantly accessible for

transformative.

analytics for decision makers to view

the current reality of their operations.

Enter high-performance, massive

It means that entire tracts of data

capacity in-memory analytics,

analytics practices and systems will

representing massive, game-changing

fundamentally change and shift to

increases in computing speed and the

in-memory computing. People will get to

ability to analyze massive data sets in

use the entirety of the enterprise data,

real-time, fundamentally able to change

at the moment of its creation, without

how business leaders will view their

ever moving it, cubing it, ETL-ing it,

processes, decisions, and business

replicating it, etc. They just get to use

models. Just like the printing press,

it right then and there. According to

the combustion engine, the transistor,

Gartner Group, By 2012, 70% of Global

e-commerce, the smartphone, or

1000 organizations will load detailed data

other revolutionary inventions, simply

into memory as the primary method to

describing attributes of the technology

optimize BI application performance.1

itself doesnt even begin to describe the

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

This new enabler has the potential to

as their supporting inventory planners,

change enormous and diverse aspects

financial forecasters, campaign analysts,

of business: it will super-charge time-to-

etc.) plan and operate their businesses

value in decision-making capabilities, it

and will have wide-spread effects across

will enable the creation of new business

almost every industry in the world, be

models, it will change how processes

it banking, retail, manufacturing, public

are optimized, and it will fundamentally

services, distribution, life sciences, etc.

change the way organizations will

No industry will be untouched.

leverage their enterprise applications for

analytics and real-time decision making.

Its big news for the CIO too. Unlike

It has massive potential to significantly

most disruptive change, in-memory

change how line of business executives

doesnt require actual disruption to

(such as COO, CFO, CMO, etc. as well

an enterprises IT environment. These

In-memory analytics in action: Large retailer

A large consumer products retail company wanted to analyze all their point-of-sale
(POS) data to predict demand, especially during promotions where inventory levels
can be unexpectedly and suddenly diminished (or not).
Ideally, they wished to target restocking shelves with 48-hour turn-around. The data
set they needed to analyze each cycle was 460 Billion records (or 40 Terabytes), a
set of data that was unworkable with any real speed using their current database
platform.
The company chose to employ a high performing analytics solution to work in
concert with their existing system. They achieved 20 times faster analysis with 200
times better price and performance. Most importantly, they moved from five days
down to two days for shelf turnaround and took great leaps to eliminate out of stock
situations during promotions.3

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

technologies work side-by-side with

investment and discovery by some key

existing systems and require no painful

technology firms.

integration or replacement of existing

systems. Its relatively inexpensive and

In simple, laymen terms, in-memory

helps enable companies to tackle their

computing is the ability to perform

biggest problems first - to test, to learn,

computer operations in RAM that were

and adapt.

traditionally performed on a hard drive. If

you think about your personal computer,

The moment to seize the opportunity is

you typically perform some active activity

upon us now. In five years from now, we

in memory (such as work on a single

will likely see significant shifts from disc

spreadsheet) and you store the hundreds

memory to in-memory for many analytics

or thousands of files you arent actually

applications. The smart money is moving

using at the moment on your hard drive.

fast and moving now, and the leaders

While working on the spreadsheet

that figure out their in-memory play today

is pretty fast, accessing another file

will be the ones who ride the front wave

on your hard drive takes time to find,

going forward.

activate, and finally open. And if opening

one file seems slow, imagine how slow

The rise of in-memory computing

and the explosion of data

opening ALL of your files would be

simultaneously. This is where in-memory
analytics offers a major shift. Instead of

Neither in-memory computing nor

the need for faster analytics are new
developments, but both of these factors
have had recent major advances that,
when considered together, create the
opportunity for explosive change. The

using hard drives to store hundreds of

terabytes of enterprise data, we can do
it in the memory where we actually work
and manipulate the data (not just store)
at potential speeds 1,000 times faster
than conventional systems.

biggest is the incredibly significant jump

in scale and volume in-memory can

Simultaneously, we are experiencing

now handle, thanks to years of recent

an explosion in the amount of data

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

enterprises and markets are generating.

integrated analytics within many more

Every day, 15 petabytes of new

of their processes. Almost every actor in

information are being generated. This is

the enterprise could wildly benefit from

eight times more than the information

getting more and faster intelligence from

in all U.S. libraries. 80% of new data

his or her data.

growth is unstructured content.2 Data

sensors on objects such as machines,

New way vs. old way

trucks, shelves, and inventories are

accelerating the volume of data. Plus,
the base traditional data in transactional
and ERP systems is also growing rapidly.

Traditionally, this has been the disciplines

of business intelligence, analytics, data
warehousing, data marts, reporting,
master data management, and a host

As most business leaders know, there

of other activities aimed at extracting

is incredible intelligence locked in this

the intelligence from these sources

massive amount of data, and the best

of business data. The traditional data

and brightest leaders know that they

warehousing process is now well

can vastly improve their decision-

known: at some time interval (day,

making if they can access and use the

week month) an engineer or piece of

insights in this data. Marketers could

software makes a giant copy of the

better target customers using sentiment

data in the transactional and planning

analysis over Twitter. Sales and service

systems to an operational data store. It

people could offer the perfect product

then moves it through a transformation

offers at the best time. Procurement

process to make it suitable for analytics

officers could make strategic purchases

(called extract-transform-load), and

when prices and demand are optimal.

loads it into a data warehouse. The

Logistics experts could super-target

data then must be further processed

inventories based on real-time demand

with indexes, aggregates, queries,

signals. Finance could make smarter

and calculations, done ahead of user

decisions about budgeting or avoiding

interaction to deal with its volume and

risk. And so on. Enterprises will have

processing requirements. It can then

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

be accessed by analytics tools to make

data that was being created right now.

reports, generate insights, and potentially

Instead of any latency, they access it

more local data marts. Only now is

immediately. Analysis that would take

the business user ready for insights,

hours of processing time may potentially

decision-making, and business action.

now take seconds. This is what the

new reality of in-memory computing is.

In this process, the business user is

In simple terms, organizations can cut

constrained to only view data from the

latency, enable access, and quicken

past, and only compiles it relatively

discovery. Looking through a wider lens,

slowly and in limited formations. While

we fundamentally have transformed

his or her daily operations whizzes

how decisions can be made, and have

by at the speed of business, they are

leveraged the physical data warehouse

stuck depending on data views of the

with a logical enterprise warehouse,

past. Now imagine, with in-memory

an actual non-warehouse that pulls data

analytics, they didnt have to go through

from virtually anywhere at anytime on

the data warehousing process? Instead

demand.

of waiting, they used the transactional

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

In-memory analytics technologies also

production, piloting new software, and

have the capability to capture data from

building new hardware, were all in grand

traditional disk-based databases by

design to fulfill massive, revolutionary,

efficiently replicating it into memory in

game-changing business transformation.

near real-time. Companies can combine

both data sources to seamlessly support
demanding business needs for real-time

The in-memory transformation

opportunity

reporting based on the latest available

data with unmatched administrative
effort.

The opportunities for in-memory

analytics transformations are exciting
for both business leaders (such as

In short, we go from complex to simple,

CFOs, CMOs, supply chain leadership,

from slow to fast, and from unviable to

HR leadership, etc.) and technologists.

vital.

This paper will primary discuss these

trends in business terms and will only

The development of in-memory

go into technical opportunities as they

technology is no accident. Leading

are aligned specifically with achieving

firms in the technology and ERP space

business goals and helping to mitigate

made heavy investments for many years

deployment risk. Technologists can be

to make this happen, knowing all the

comforted that there is no shortage of

time the profound and transformative

technical specs and documents available

implications of the invention. Working

on this topic available under separate

to get the right economy of memory

cover.

Imagine this
A consumer products company using in-memory analytics analyzes 600 million
records in 2.9 seconds enabling the analyst to drill-down in detail instantly and
analyze any SKU, product family region, or time period instantly.3

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

The scope of strategic value that

less frustration. This is all good, but the

we can envision within enterprise-

real opportunities will come as business

class businesses that use in-memory

leaders re-imagine their jobs and work-

analytics

group function, think about how they

can reinvent their core operating models,

In-memory analytics should generate

change how they view the present and

a lot of excitement with business

the future, and rebuild processes in ways

leaders across lines of business and

previously unimaginable.

departments. As business leaders

contemplate changes, they will need

Listed below are seven prime areas

to take themselves out of the space of

that business leaders and technologists

traditional thought on business analytics

may rethink as they explore and discuss

and decision-making. It is natural for

in-memory analytics with their colleagues

people to try to imagine what they do

and trusted advisors:

now but perhaps just faster or with

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

Real-time information and

A service manager could identify

speeding time-to-value in

peaks or trends in call types and

business activities

activate additional resources or

change tactics to deal with the
actual demands of customers.

Perhaps the biggest change will be

A retailer could monitor the inventory

in using real-time data and analysis

on their smart shelves as items were

vs. traditional data analytics that has

purchased and restock them quickly,

problems of latency, replication, and

potentially cutting turns from weeks

potentially a misrepresentation of reality.

to days.

With real-time information pulled directly

from the source, business leaders would

A manufacturer could continually

be able to speed time-to-value in all

track the productivity of equipment,

business activities, meaning that the

assets, and source materials and

decisions they made would be more

sense equipment breakdowns and

immediate and their effects (be they

assembly line bottlenecks as they

positive or negative) would happen much

occur.

faster.

A sustainability manager could

In the new state, business people

monitor water usage or waste

experience decisions such as:

production and perform cost/

environment trade-off analysis in

A marketer could monitor the

real-time to help minimize harmful

performance of a campaign as

environmental effects.

the messages are delivered to

prospects and change, on the fly,

A financial risk manager could

the parameters (spend, message,

monitor capital markets in synch

offer, etc.) of the campaign to juice

with their own capital needs in real-

the results.

Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

time to help know optimal times to

parts of an existing process. Even when

borrow and repay debt.

designing new processes, we are often

hampered by our habituated knowledge

An HR manager could monitor the

of how things were done in the past.

utilization efficiency of employees on

an hourly or daily basis as they work

With real-time information, many

to make staffing and deployment

business leaders may find themselves

decisions.

exiting out of traditional incremental

process design and discovering that they
may need to reinvent how they think of
the process altogether. Imagine a finance

Process optimization

manager who traditionally performed

budgeting and forecasting on monthly
or quarterly basis. In the traditional

Today, when we think of fixing business

processes, we often try to drive efficiency
by streamlining or removing wasteful

method, he or she may attempt to

tweak the process to use fewer analysts
or produce better reports. With the

Incredible: Large Euro bank overdrives customer contact data management

CRMers in a large Euro bank realized 6.3x data compression and 369x average
query speed-up using in-memory analytics. In their old method, they could only store
30 days of information because of its size - and just to get reports the processing
could run eight hours. In-memory analytics was applied to all inbound and outbound
customer contact data and was analyzed by a large number of groups within
the bank. Better yet, no significant changes were needed, including no schema
changes - they used the same data and the same SQL, but now got their benefits
immediately.3

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Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

possibility of in-memory analytics, they

prompts an inventory replenishment

may shift their vision to having core plans

action in real-time.

updated every day.

A malfunctioning pressure valve in

an oil rig sends an alarm to the right
repair personnel who is closest to

Embedded analytics

the incident and provides them with

the repair solution and parts that are
needed.

With in-memory analytics, organizations

may find powerful new opportunities

A trade promotion management

system analyzes a purchase at

to use embedded analytics where

a retail location and prompts the

sophisticated, real-time analysis of

proper add-on sales opportunities

events is performed at the point of

such as warranty and service

interaction and then specific and unique

contracts.

business action is taken in response to

improve an outcome or performance.

A sensor measures traffic on a busy

We can imagine potential embedded

highway and changes toll rates to

analytics applications that may include:

regulate traffic flows and capacities

in real-time.

During a customer service technical

support call, the agent is able to

These are all real examples of embedded

offer the customer new solutions

analytics being used today. As with

based on analysis of the customers

other, older applications of analytics, the

voice responses, emotional

latency required to execute these kinds

indicators, and profile data.

of programs in any significantly massive

scale would prohibit real-time action.

A certain combination of selling

With in-memory analytics, these types

medical devices from inventory

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Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

of actions dont just become possible --

customer impact, and ecological

they become pervasive.

impact to create compelling and

advantageous manufacturing
processes.

New applications such as

simulations

Model and predict crime rates in

major cities so that emergency and
police personnel can be staffed and
deployed to help improve social
order.

In-memory analytics will help enable

businesses to develop and utilize entire
new applications that previously didnt
exist or required too much time (both in
terms of usage and latency) to perform.
New applications may arise, such as

Simulate multiple customer loyalty

scenarios based on interactions,
attitudes, demographics, and other
profile criteria to optimize churn
rates.

using simulations that may enable

someone to analyze data such as:

Simulate shipping and inventory

New business models

routes based on weather conditions,

fuel prices, and other dimensions to
determine optimal inventory packing
and shipping routes.

Ultimately some companies will actually

change how their business is structured

Model the trade-offs between

and operates, how they will re-distribute

different aspects of manufacturing

accountability and power, how risk

design in terms of financial impact,

profiles will change with increased

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Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

speed, and how roles will change with

Emergence of the logical

real-time data. Some companies may

enterprise warehouse

find themselves getting skinnier or

flatter as they put decision-making into
different hands. Companies will change
how people collaborate with each other
as entirely new swaths of information is
delivered at the point of need.

In-memory analytics works by accessing

information from their existing stores
in real-time as opposed to requiring
the processes and infrastructure of

These types of changes represent new

traditional data warehousing. This

business models and is perhaps the

will change the fundamentals of IT

most intriguing, provocative, and exciting

architecture beginning now and into

aspect of the potential for in-memory

the future, having a profound impact on

analytics. Once the habit of incremental

how technologists think about deploying

change is shed and leaders realize the

analytics and applications. Some call

true opportunities, we may see wild

this the logical enterprise warehouse

change that is difficult to project right

where the analytics processes and

now, only limited to the innovations and

infrastructure is logical but doesnt exist

imaginations of creative leaders taking

physically.

some bold new steps with analytics.

Some are predicting that there will be
The scope of business enabling

significant shifts from hard discs to

technology for in-memory computing

in-memory for specific applications,

especially analytics. With this

The value of in-memory computing for

transformation, we could imagine

technologists in their drive to support

logical enterprise warehouse to be a

business users is also compelling.

transitory term that has relevance vis--

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Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

vis traditional physical data warehouses.

these types of integrations will be simpler

As adoption of in-memory computing

and faster. Because the data is pulled in

continues, we could expect many new

real-time, achieving analytics capabilities

technological concepts and terms to

wont require much rip-and-replace type

likely emerge.

integration, it will provide flexibility in

how quickly systems must be physically
integrated, and will help drive change to
the cost/value equation for integration

New view of consolidation

overall.

and integration
Other technology benefits: Help drive
lower risk, lower TCO, more flexibility
Many businesses have a perpetual and
pervasive challenge in standardizing
and integrating systems. New mergers
or acquisitions almost always require
a painful reconciliation of multiple ERP
instances. Multi-national companies who
operate in many markets, those with
many Strategic Business Units (SBUs),
holding companies with subsidiaries,
etc., often have similar diverse and
disparate portfolios of systems that
need to be integrated and coordinated.

While this paper mostly expounds on the

value of in-memory analytics to business
leadership, the technology implications
are huge. New high performance
analytics technologies are being brought
to market that help to significantly reduce
the risk of making these changes while
driving a lower total cost of ownership
and providing new flexibility for changes
going forward. These technologies help
address implementation risk through
aspects such as:

These types of efforts keep entire IT

organizations occupied for years. With

Side-by-side deployment:

the emergence of in-memory analytics

Systems can be deployed and

and the logical enterprise warehouse

tested side-by-side with existing

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Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

systems, providing no business or IT

new operations safely, and prioritize

disruption, which allows for flexibility

areas they find important. Again,

in adoption speeds, and is easily

unlike migrating to a new system, no

reversible.

monolithic changes are required.

No trade-offs: Most system

A fully articulated technology discussion

changes require a migration or

is not presented here. This said, both the

wholesale change in functionality

business leadership and IT leadership

that leads to making trade-offs

can certainly justify a more thorough and

between the benefits of one system

purposeful conversation and exploration

over the other. With in-memory

of in-memory computing based on

analytics, the effect is incremental

these aspects alone, and should be

in value to the existing systems and

encouraged to dive in deep to explore

feature/value trade-offs are possibly

the opportunities in-memory analytics

unneeded.

can provide.

Non-destruction of existing

Conclusion

investments: With the technologys

side-by-side and incremental

For many business leaders staring at

deployment, existing investments

the immense opportunity for radical,

in ERP and other systems remain

disruptive change through in-memory

intact and still functioning.

analytics, the response may be one of

excitement, advocacy, and unbridled

Gradual change approach and

enthusiasm for the future. For others,

prioritization of change: Because

it may come with apprehension, fear,

of the technologys flexibility,

disbelief, or uneasiness towards change.

organizations can change at the

Regardless of your particular posture,

rate they feel comfortable with, test

the smart company needs to get

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Prepare for the Quantum Leap in Real-Time Analytics

ahead of the in-memory conversation,

their futures and act upon opportunity

dive deeply into understanding how it

successfully. The fast movers will

works and what it presents, and craft

be positioning for a new economy,

a purposeful strategy and roadmap for

becoming analytics competitors that

their in-memory future.

out-think and out-act their competition

like rarely seen before.

The shift to in-memory analytics will

make time-to-value in countless
business decisions accelerate. It will
change the pace of adoption and

For more information about IBM, go to

integrated analytics within the enterprise.

www.ibm-sap.com/hana

It will change total cost of ownership

for IT. It will create an entirely new path
to value that most companies have not
experienced before.

For more information about SAP, go to

www.sap.com/platform/in-memorycomputing

Like most emerging mega-trends,

success or failure with in-memory
analytics will come with the speed
of adoption. Early adopters will have
the most opportunities to create new
competitive advantages as well as
suffer through the most mistakes. Late
adopters may have to play catch-up as
their competitors lap them analytically.
The worst action here is inaction, and
those who are prepared intellectually for
the change will be best suited to plan

1. Gartner, October 2006.

2. TED 2007: Predicting the Next 5000 Days of the Web. IBM analysis.
3. Customer results may vary and will depend on system configuration.

16

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